Blog 7

During the rise of comic book stores in the nineteen eighties people who wish to pursue their passion were able to distribute their works and work in the comic industry. Since DC and Marvel owned the entire comic book industry it made it nearly impossible for creators to freely express themselves. Both companies also made it impossible for creators to be compensated with their own creation or characters being used in their company brand names. Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird are one of the few who were successful in challenging the established status qua and trying to change the comic book industry for independent creators or at least attempted.

1. Talk about their creation TMNT and how it was an unexpected success.
2. How the sales showed that people were willing to try something different than what Marvel and DC were dishing out at the time. Especially being a self published book.
3. How both Eastman and Laird try to create the "Bill of comic Creators" helping comic book independent creators to control, publish, and inherit their royalties from their own creation.
4. Laird created the Xeric foundation a nonprofit organization that will give back to the industry as a whole and teach new up comers about self publishing.
5. Eastman left TMNT to create his own publishing company called Tundra to give comic writers a chance to diversify themselves from what Marvel and DC allows them to do.

Both Eastman and Laird tried their best to change the comic book industry for those who wished to do their own thing. Unfortunately their attempts were somewhat successful while others failed. To me these two people are pioneers of independent creators who tried to change the industry. What makes me cringe is that people give most of the credit to five artists who worked at Marvel comics and left to form their own company called Image. Sure they were most successful in the industry but they had fame and recognition from their fans. Plus they relied on gimmicks like reprinting multiple versions of issues of their first issues and devalued comics artistically as a whole with bad stories and lackluster art work. What Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird did was important in the comic industry since they did it all from scratch and didn't have any fame from their previous work. They spend countless weeks drawing, inking, and writing their stories in Laird's living room. That in my book is a huge change in mass communication.

McGill, g. Douglas “DYNAMIC DUO: Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird; Turning Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Into a Monster” New York Times. 25 December 1988. 21 October 2010.
Kean, Benjamin. “Turtles Days, Turtles Night”. Talking to Kevin Eastman. 31 August 2007. Newsarama. 21 october 2010 < http://forum.newsarama.com/showthread.php?t=127540>